The concept of service awareness (SA) provides network elements/nodes with knowledge about the services in use in a network. A number of methods for implementing service awareness in a network exist, for example shallow packet inspection (SPI), deep packet inspection (DPI) or Heuristic Analysis could be used. All three technologies provide different levels of knowledge about traffic and end-user services employed in the network, and typically monitor data of a packet and extracts information from the monitored data on which network decisions can be taken. In this way, the network can for example be made aware of whether a certain network user is using a Facebook application or making a voice over IP (VoIP) call with a mobile phone, etc.
An enhanced uplink (EUL) scheduler in a WCDMA network is responsible for allowing terminals to transmit data according to an approved rate. The terminal may request grants for transmission of data at higher data rates when transmission buffers are filling up in the terminal, and the scheduler grants or denies requested transmission at a higher rate. The network measures terminal activity and when the terminal no longer uses the granted rate, the EUL scheduler is informed thereof, withdraws the grant and releases the granted resources.
In particular, current mechanisms for predicting EUL interference headroom are conservative and based on e.g. measurements of signal-to-interference ratios (SIR) and/or received total wideband power (RTWP) using sliding windows to predict future network load. These are inflexible ways of determining interference headroom and maximal allowed cell interference becomes a trade-off between high levels of terminal transmission power on the one hand and reduction of cell capacity on the other.